Passing String Arrays into PHP file with Android - php

Question

I'm trying to use retrofit and PHP to store values in MySQL. I will pass in to the PHP a single postid string (postid) and a string array. For each index in the string array (called tags) I will make a unique row in the database. It will have the following form:
--------------------
|postid | tags |
--------------------
| postid | tags[0]|
| postid | tags[1]|
| postid | tags[2]|
....................
--------------------
The issue I am having is that for the string array, only the last value in the array is being stored.
Here is the retrofit interface
#FormUrlEncoded
#POST("create_recipe.php")
Call<Void> createRecipe(
#Field("postid") String postid,
#Field("tags") String[] tags
);
and the retrofit client call
Retrofit retrofit = ApiClient.getClient();
ApiInterface apiService = retrofit.create(ApiInterface.class);
Call<Void> call = apiService.createRecipe(postid, tags);
call.enqueue(new Callback<Void>() {
#Override
public void onResponse(Call<Void> call, Response<Void> response) {
}
#Override
public void onFailure(Call<Void> call, Throwable t) {
}
});
Here is what the PHP that handles this looks like (excluding some of the init code)
if (isset($_POST['postid']) && isset($_POST['tags']){
$uid = $_POST['postid'];
$tags = array($_POST['tags']);
$tags_new = str_replace(array('[', ',', ']'), '' , $tags);
foreach ($tags_new as $value){
mysql_query("INSERT INTO Tags(postid, tag) VALUES('$postid', '$value')");
}
}
If I pass in postid = 30 and tags = {"milk", "cheese", "bread"} I want it to look like
--------------------
|postid | tags |
--------------------
| 30 | milk |
| 30 | cheese |
| 30 | bread |
....................
--------------------
but instead only bread will be stored.
How do I handle the string array passed in as a parameter in PHP?
What is the form of the array when I pass it onto $tags?

Answer 1

I had the same problem some time back and found no clear solution for it. However I built a simple solution for something similar. I hope this solution helps.

Answer 2

Actually, you can print it out in the PHP work sheet, you can add the following to log the input here.
file_put_contents("test.log",json_encode($_POST)."--".json_encode($_GET));
Only then will you be able to determine whether the array is correctly delivered to the php script.

Answer 3

you might want to reconsider about this, because the following line is basically just removing all the barriers in the string($tags, which is now interpreted as a String instead of an array):
$tags_new = str_replace(array('[', ',', ']'), '' , $tags);
and change it into
$tags_new = split(',' , $tags);